Anecdotes of Painting in England: With Some Account of the Principal Artists - Vol. 2

a Neapolitan ; an excellent painter for the sort of subjects
on which he was employed ; that is, without much invention, and with less taste, his exuberant pencil was ready at
pouring out gods, goddesses, kings, emperors and triumphs,
over those public surfaces on which the eye never rests
long enough to criticise, and where one should be sorry to
place the works of a better master: I mean ceilings and
staircases. The New Testament or the Roman History
cost him nothing but ultra-marine ; that, and marble
columns, and marble steps he never spared. He first
settled in France, and painted the high altar of the
Carmelites at Toulouse, which is described in Du Puy's
Traité sur la Peinture, p. 219. Toul. 1699.

Charles II. having a mind to revive the manufacture of
tapestry at Mortlake, which had been interrupted by the
civil war, sent for Verrio to England; but changing his
purpose, consigned over Windsor to his pencil. 3 The king
was induced to this by seeing some of his painting at Lord
Arlington's, at the end of St. James's-park, where at present
stands Buckingham-house. The first picture Verrio drew
for the king was his majesty in naval triumph, now in the

Verrio's arrival in England is ascertained in Eyelyn's Diary, 1671 : "At Lord
Arlington's house, at Euston. Paintings in fresco in the hall, being the first work
which Verrio did in England."

" Verrio's invention is admirable, his ord'nance full and flowing, antique and
heroical; his figures move ; and if the walls hold (which is the only doubt, by
reason of the salts, which in time and in this moist climate, prejudice,) the work.
will preserve his name to ages."—Evelyn, Mem. vol. i. p. 518.—D.

Evelyn, who was considered a connoisseur in painting, in his own time, gives
unqualified praise to Verrio ; and it is evident, that the public had adopted his
opinion.

"1683. To see Montagu-house. The Funeral pile of Dido. Hercules and the
Centaurs, &c., I think exceeds anything he has yet done, both for design and
colouring, and exuberance of invention, comparable to the greatest old masters, or
what they do, in France." This, so celebrated, work was destroyed by fire, in 1686.
Pope's satire of " Where sprawl the Saints of Verrio," has had a lasting influence on
the public mind with regard to his real merit as a painter. Verrio's first, or introductory work at Windsor, was the ceiling of the queen's guardroom.—D.

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